Short Days and Long Nights

Perhaps it is the chill in the air that came from the North two days ago.

Certainly the limited daylight is contributing to it...

The blog author, who is most assuredly a "morning person" cannot drag myself off the mattress these past few days.

This is particularly disastrous when one considers the chain of events required to get seven children, one "non-morning person" husband, and oneself off to school each morning.  Our concrete floors (with tile over them) are frigid.  So I spend the first 15 minutes of the wake-up bell shouting orders to "find your slippers."  Here it is a mortal sin to allow your child to get cold.  Cold equals illness, in the mind of my neighbors, it is an infallible equation. 

Then the scrambling thoughts of breakfast...what will we eat this morning?  For a few brief weeks at the beginning of school, an intrepid peddler planted himself just outside our LQ gates to sell noodles and baozi each morning.  My kids (but greater still, I) acted like we had heard the music from the ice cream truck come to town!  I practically ran each day to the peddler's cart, (as I'm not one for running...this is notable), with high hopes that he would still have enough to feed my brood.    For the equivalent of $1.50 USD, I could have a hot breakfast for all 9 of us!  But alas, the peddler has shuffled off to greener pastures, and I am left in the daily panic of how to make a hot breakfast each day.  Mortal sin, #2, feeding your children cold food...especially on short winter days!

Once fed the real fun begins as we assemble three layers of clothing per child.  That is, for those of you keeping track at home, 27 layers of clothing in one day!  While each year I have curious questions from blog readers as to WHY we wear so many layers, even though it is only say 30 degrees....I'll try to get ahead of that now by mentioning again that we have no central heat.  When it is 30 degrees outside (think of this as you hustle into your climate controlled car tomorrow and feel impatient waiting the 5 minutes for the heat to begin to blow on your chilled hands) it is only 40 degrees inside.  Living in 40 degrees, with no escape, demands multiple layers.  I fought this valiantly when we first arrived.  I so longed to prove that my western-idea of dressing was adequate...secretly disdaining the layers...but I have fully succumbed to it now.  It simply is a necessity. 

(It is Mortal Sin #3, to allow your children to go out with at least 3 layers on...you are subject to periodic, random checks from any party such as the school nurse, school parents, teachers or the principal...if a child is found without layers, the parent is branded with the scarlet letters NP for "negligent parent" on their foreheads and forever within the hearts of the community that brand is remembered!)

 So, we rush about finding the thinnest, warmest layers each morning, work up a sweat trying to pull them over each other, until finally putting on our down coats...that often will not be removed all throughout the work day.  Soon the days will be here when I'll wear my gloves, even at my desk, as it will be too cold to type on my keyboard. 

The final backpack hunt, homework recovery, shoe matching and donning, gloves, hats, thermoses full of hot water, dance shoes for dance class, guitars for music class, snack for snack time, towels for hand washing...and SWEAT TOWELS for our Kindergarten boys who will inevitably work up a sweat while running and playing and will wear them down their back to absorb sweat (another cultural thing I fought to no avail)...teacher name badges, cell phones, lights off, doors closed....and then the DASH to the school building.

Yesterday the wind was blowing so hard, freezing wind from the North, that it took us twice as long to walk to school in the face of it...The Bruiser nearly knocked off his feet a few times by the gusts...

Then we all settle into our different rooms, in the same building, and go about our daily life...until 5 pm...

when the dinner rush, homework press, bath time, bed time by 7:30, parents collapsing...event begins.

Must begin to gather the layers for Tuesday...we leave in just 50 minutes...